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“I like the pastel colors. They’d be great on the outside of this place. We should bring them back to life,” Zoe said.
“I’m not painting my bakery in pastel colors,” Ryder said.
“Why not?” Zoe put her hands on her hips.
“Shall we save this for if Ryder actually gets to own this place?” Sawyer said, refereeing.
“You are not having a say in this.” Ryder jabbed his finger in his sister’s direction.
She smiled, which had him growling.
“Let’s go, kids.” Sawyer headed to the closed front door and opened it.
“I’m busy!” a voice called from out back as the Dukes stepped inside. “Come back later.”
“It’s the Dukes, Mr. Limpet,” Ryder called.
“I got nothing for you to steal!”
“We don’t do that anymore,” Ryder yelled.
Sawyer looked around the interior. It was smaller than he remembered, but then the last time he stepped foot in here he was probably a kid.
They heard the scrape of a chair and then the stomp of booted feet, and Mr. Limpet appeared.
“He hasn’t changed at all,” Zoe whispered.
Rail-thin and grizzle-faced, Mr. Limpet wore overalls with a plaid shirt and work boots. On his head was his favorite fishing hat that kept his gray hair off his face and was his only concession that Sawyer could see to hygiene standards.
Glass cabinets were smeared with dust and fingerprints, and the place smelled like a cross between grease, stale food, and musty oldness.
“What the hell do you three want?” Mr. Limpet scowled.
“Nice to see you—”
“We want to buy this place, and seeing as you don’t give a shit about it, you’re going to sell it to us,” Sawyer cut Ryder off. “How much do you want?”
“Well, finally,” Mr. Limpet said, then he named an amount.
His first surprise was the man was willing to sell when they’d never even heard a rumor of it before. The second was the ridiculous sum he’d given them.
“Nope,” Sawyer said when Ryder opened his mouth. “It’s not worth that. We’d be buying the building only. The stock and goodwill are worth shit.”
“Maybe that’s true, but I come here every day to escape my wife. I need the money to buy a boat so I can go fishing and hide out there,” Mr. Limpet said. “Besides, we’ve got a new member in our cards group now. Kathleen is terrible at them, and so far I’ve won enough money off her to buy pizza for lunch every day.”
“Who the hell is Kathleen?” Zoe asked.
“She’s a long-lost Keller cousin.”
Sawyer tried not to think about the Kellers, so he turned to the door as the bell chimed to announce someone entering the bakery.
The Matilda siblings. With them was Nancy from the Circle Left and her husband, Hank. They were dressed in matching square-dancing shirts and shorts. All wore sneakers. Clearly out for their morning run.
“You go walking in your square-dancing shirts?” Zoe asked.
“Square dancing is for life, girlie,” Nancy said. “Wouldn’t hurt you young ’uns to see that.”
“Right. Silly me.”
